will – The Tao of Holy Orthodoxy

Love wax seal

How you experience God’s Grace (Energy) depends upon the disposition of your heart. Since God has created you with the freedom to use your will, you choose whether your heart will be humble, soft, obedient, and open to God’s Grace or, conversely, whether your heart will be prideful, hard, self-willed, and closed to God’s Grace. In other words, you determine whether your heart will be like wax or like clay. When the same sun shines down on both wax and clay, the wax softens, but the clay hardens.

When the Holy Scripture speaks of God hardening someone’s heart, understand that the same Grace that hardened the heart of one person would heal and sanctify the heart of another. Again, you choose whether or not to allow the Divine Grace to work within you.

If your heart is humble like wax, God will impress his seal into your heart so that you may be conformed to His likeness and act according to His will.

Read: Exodus 7-15

In our present condition, we do not always use our will correctly. The human will is naturally inclined toward God and operates in harmony with God’s Will. If we follow God’s Will we do what God intends for us to do. When we do what God intends for us to do, we remain true to our human nature, always doing what is good for us and moving toward the fulfillment of our potential and purpose.

This is our problem: We do not personally will to do what God desires for us. Instead of naturally doing good, each person goes through the process of considering the different possible actions and then making a choice to do good or to do evil. Because our knowledge is imperfect, we don’t always know the good way to act. Even when we do know what the good action is, we often still decide to act according to self-will, placing ourselves in opposition to God’s Will. When we do not act in harmony with God’s will, we do what is harmful to our souls. If we keep inclining toward evil choices, we can form a deeply-rooted habit of harmful behavior.

Tag: will

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